Grocery Shopping
by GitaMerah
Summary: Rose drags the Doctor along for grocery shopping and accidentally meets their future selves. No big deal, really… except their future selves had some interesting items in their cart. Oneshot. No regeneration/POTW.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who and I make no money out of this.

**Grocery Shopping**

"All of time and space, and we still end up going to Tesco's," the Doctor complained as Rose dragged him from aisle to aisle while he pushed the cart for her.

"Well if _someone_ hadn't accidentally landed us in the middle of The Second Great Milk Riot of the 34th century, we wouldn't have had to come here for groceries instead. Besides, we can't live on bananas forever," Rose said. Well, alright, they hadn't exactly been living on just bananas. There were still some bread and butter in the kitchen, which was all well and good, except Rose was getting tired of eating banana-toast everyday.

"Nothing wrong with bananas," the Doctor grumbled.

"What's the matter, Doctor? Too domestic for you?" She grinned at him teasingly.

"As a matter of fact, yeah." He complained. "Grocery shopping on a Sunday afternoon. Can't get more domestic than this."

Rose was about to reply when she heard a familiar voice coming from the opposite end of the aisle. She looked up and saw herself and the Doctor turning into this aisle with a shopping cart full of stuff. _Uh-oh_. Having two sets of themselves in the same time and place couldn't possibly be a good idea.

"Doctor…" Rose tugged at _her_ Doctor urgently. She didn't remember meeting her past self in Tesco's. These must be their future selves. But why would the future Doctor bring her future self here, especially knowing that their past selves would be here?

"What?" Her Doctor frowned, then followed her gaze. "Oh."

The future Doctor and Rose didn't seem to have noticed them yet. In fact, they sounded like they were arguing over something.

"Lots of children play with atomic particle simulators!" The future Doctor said to the future Rose.

"Doctor, he's only _seven months old_. He can't even stack simple blocks yet, let alone atomic particles," argued the future Rose.

The current Rose frowned in confusion at their conversation. It was then that she noticed what was on their future selves' shopping cart: baby diapers, and what looked like several jars of baby food.

"Uh…" The current Doctor stared at the other two speechlessly. His gaze flickered between their future selves and the cart full of diapers and baby food.

"Doctor… they're buying _diapers_." Rose whispered in shock.

"Uh…." Her Doctor was, apparently, currently incapable of uttering anything more than one syllable words.

The future Rose and Doctor stopped, then finally noticed their other selves. Future Rose glanced at their shocked expressions, followed their past selves' gazes and belatedly realized what was on her cart.

Eyes wide, future Rose's cheeks reddened as she hastily muttered, "This is not what it looks like!"

"Y-you… you're buying diapers." Rose muttered in shock. _Diapers!_ With the Doctor helping her, too. Did that mean she and the Doctor would, er… _No way. That's impossible_. Rose's cheeks reddened at the thought. He didn't think of her that way. There was no way she and the Doctor would have a baby in the future… would they?

"Doctor!" Future Rose hissed at her Doctor and elbowed him. "Say something!"

The future Doctor opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally, he said to his Rose, "Sorry. It's 200_6_, not 2009."

"2009! I'm going to be a Mum by _2009_?" Rose said in shock. Even if it weren't exactly two years in her future, it still couldn't have been too far away. Other than slightly shorter hair, her future self didn't look that different. Neither did the future Doctor (then again, he doesn't age. So his appearance is not an indication of how much time passed between now and their future selves' time). Her future self still looked like a young 20-something woman, so it must not be very far into her future. Besides, no matter how much she travelled, the Doctor tended to take her back to her linear time whenever they went to visit her mum. So, it couldn't have been more than three or four years in her future.

"Wha..? No, no! This is—" Future Rose's words were cut off when the future Doctor grabbed her by the elbows.

"Right. That's enough information on the future. Forget anything we just said. Come on, Rose!" The future Doctor grabbed the cart full of diapers and dragged his Rose out of the aisle, leaving their shell-shocked past selves to stare at the now empty aisle.

oOo

Future Rose frowned when her Doctor dragged her away from their past selves.

"Wait, Doctor, shouldn't we explain? I know what my past self is thinking right now. She thinks these are for _our_ baby!" Rose gestured towards the cart full of diapers and baby food that her mum told her to buy for her. How could she have forgotten about this day? She remembered being her past self on this day. This particular day had been engraved in her memories forever. Her past self would spend the next couple of years worrying whether the baby was born out of love or if it was the result of a one-night stand. It wasn't until her mum told her she was pregnant that Rose finally understood who the diapers were for.

"And what would you say to them? You can't tell them these are for your brother. Canary Wharf hasn't even happened for them yet. They haven't even met your parallel dad, yet," said the Doctor.

"But…" Rose protested, then sighed. The Doctor was right, of course. Telling her past self about her baby brother would only raise questions that shouldn't be answered yet. What would she say if her past self asked who Tony's father was? She couldn't exactly tell her past self that her parallel dad would one day be trapped here and marry her mum. Not only would that cause a paradox since she didn't recall knowing about the battle of Canary Wharf ahead of time, she also knew how much it would break her past Doctor if he knew that the Dalek in Van Statten's museum would by no means be the last Dalek he would ever encounter.

"Fine." She muttered in resignation. "Let's just pay for these and go before we accidentally leak anymore future information."

The Doctor nodded.

They hurried to the cashier to pay for their purchases. Once out of the store, Rose nudged his shoulders playfully and said, "Bet your past self is horrified right now. Buying diapers on a Sunday afternoon. This must be the height of domestics for you."

The Doctor stopped. There was an unreadable expression in his eyes. Slowly, he turned to her and said, "What if I wasn't?"

Rose frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

The Doctor glanced at the diapers in their shopping bags. There was a thoughtful, almost faraway look in his eyes. Finally, he turned to her and said, "I wasn't horrified."

"You weren't?" She looked at him in surprise. Hadn't he always complained about domestics? What could possibly be more domestic than buying baby supplies on a Sunday afternoon?

He set their shopping bags down on the ground, then took a step closer to her until they were standing face to face.

"Remember the Game Station?" He asked.

"How could I forget? You sent me away. I thought I'd lost you forever." Rose winced at the memory. The Doctor had sent her away so she would be safe. Lucky she always paid attention when her Doctor drove the TARDIS, so she managed to hit the return button. Good thing she did, too. The Doctor was just seconds away from being exterminated. Somehow, the TARDIS had the foresight to materialize around him, thereby protecting him from the Daleks. They ran away then so the Doctor would have time to cobble together a much more refined Delta Wave and come back to destroy the Daleks without killing humans in the process.

"So did I. After you left, I kept thinking of this day. I thought I'd changed the future by sending you away. And then you came back. And I realize that future is still coming. And you know what?" He grinned. "I was happy."

"You were?" Her eyes widened in surprise.

"Yeah." He touched her cheeks softly. "Domestics with you, Rose Tyler, wouldn't be so bad."

"Yeah?" Her smile grew. Her cheeks tingled at his touch.

"Yeah." He tipped her chin so their eyes meet. Then, he leaned forward and brushed her lips against his.


End file.
